Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for her invitation to visit Dublin 7. In fact, a few days ago, I was in the north-east inner city to examine problems with street litter and so on with the Dublin City Council cleanup team. Some of the issues with rubbish on the street are linked to landlords with large quantities of tenants who do not have waste collection contracts in place. I expect they will be targeted for priority assessment by Revenue in the future. That is a message for landlords who do not have such contracts in place.

We have discussed two situations, the first being where bills are included in the rent and the second, as the Senator noted, where the bill is split between tenants. In the latter case, the bill will be variable, depending on usage during the month, the VAT rate, which has recently changed, and the PSO levy, which changed recently from being an amount on the bill to a credit on the bill. The landlord splits the bill between the tenants and asks them all to pay their share. If landlords do not split the bill and take some of the money for themselves, that is a breach of natural justice and should be resolved by the RTB. That is called theft.